Should You Keep Bluetooth On At All Times?

Many modern gadgets run on Bluetooth — a short-range, wireless technology where devices communicate with one another via a 2.4 GHz radio frequency. You most often hear about this technology when it pertains to wireless earbuds and headphones, but you can also use Bluetooth to connect drawing tablets and number pads to your MacBook. With all of that functionality available, it might be tempting to keep your device's Bluetooth on all the time ... but is that wise or even safe? The answer is a definitive maybe.

We will admit that always keeping your Bluetooth receiver active is definitely convenient. If you like listening to music or podcasts during long commutes, all you have to do is grab your favorite pair of audiophile-approved wireless earbuds and turn on your phone's Bluetooth. That way, you can jam to your content without disturbing your public transportation neighbors. In situations such as these, you may be better off keeping Bluetooth active. You can listen to music, take the earbuds out to better hear announcements (don't want to miss your stop), and then put them back in to resume listening.

Depending on the devices you own, the question might shift from whether you should always keep Bluetooth on to whether you can afford to turn it off. Countless smart home devices rely on Bluetooth for connectivity, so if you deactivate it, you won't be able to control these appliances or receive alerts. Moreover, without Bluetooth, you won't be able to receive notifications or sync health data on smartwatches like the Apple Watch Series 11.

Convenience is all well and good, but there is always a catch. Since Bluetooth is a non-physical access port for a device, it is yet another entry point that third parties can use to access your personal information.

Hackers have unfortunately figured out how to use vulnerabilities in Bluetooth technology to launch cyberattacks. If you take a phone into a crowded area and connect to an unknown device by mistake, there is a small-but-not-zero chance you just let your gadget shake hands with a hacker's tool. Once they're in, these people can install malware or backdoor access to your phone that lets them bug your calls, steal your passwords, and collect other bits of private data. To make matters worse, some especially advanced and virulent pieces of software can sneak through open Bluetooth ports without even pairing. One such example was the virus BlueBorne, which in 2017 wormed its way through countless networks, infecting everything from smartphones to lightbulbs.

You might assume that a swiftly draining battery is another potential risk of keeping Bluetooth active all the time, but you'd only be half right. Advances in Bluetooth technology have allowed manufacturers to produce receivers that use minimal energy. In fact, Bluetooth is the default connection method for devices such as the Apple Watch since it uses less power than Wi-Fi. However, minimal power and no power are two completely different things. Bluetooth still requires some electricity, especially when it's constantly searching for connections, so turning it off when you don't need it can increase a battery's charge life to some extent.

To be frank, most of the time, you can probably keep your device's Bluetooth on and running without any noticeable repercussions. The impact on battery life is minimal (but not zero), and odds are against you jumping on the same bus as a hacker who wants to commit identity theft at any given moment. However, even that slim chance can prove devastating, so it's usually better to be safe than sorry.

While you don't have to deactivate Bluetooth when not in use, doing so can deny would-be hackers a potential avenue of attack. Then again, if news is spreading of malware that infects devices via Bluetooth, you might want to turn off your phone's or laptop's Bluetooth whenever you're out in public — risking your credit card numbers isn't worth listening to the latest podcasts on Spotify and YouTube Music. But if you want to keep your Bluetooth on while traveling on a bus or train, a little common sense goes a long way. If you see a pairing request from a device you don't own or a file sent via Bluetooth, don't accept. Heck, you can go one step further and deactivate discoverability mode — you can't receive a pairing request if a device can't find your Bluetooth signal in the first place.

On the off chance a hacker is taking advantage of a vulnerability in Bluetooth technology, often manufacturers will quickly patch that hole with a firmware update. Always keep your devices up to date, especially if the patch or hotfix is security-oriented. Regularly updating your antivirus suite is also a good idea, as it can usually provide an extra layer of security and quarantine infected files that do get through.